5 Years of WoW

Just as the new Onyxia encounter has reminded us, WoW has now been with us for five years. :)

I was preparing the posts and patch information for 3.2.2, and I couldn't help but wax melancholy (as I am wont to do) about my time in WoW. Five years makes for a lot of memories. It's not unusual to get married after a five year relationship—and yet here we are spending all of that time with a video game.

I even took some time to go back and look through how the World of Warcraft Official Site looked back in the day—does this look familiar to anyone? Dwarf mages, old fashioned troll and human models.../sigh. Those were the days.

So in honor of WoW's 5th anniversary, I've been asking the staff about their oldest and fondest memories of WoW. I've included a number of them here, after the break. Come and see!

Back when I started, it was right before the Zul'Gurub patch, back when I used to /bow and /salute level 60s who walked by just because I was so impressed with them for being level 60. I remember meeting a troll rogue named Axethrower while I was still in the Valley of Trials—he was handing out Linen Cloth to the lowbies. He gave me some, and I was in awe. He wasn't even 60 yet, but man...he had a raptor—and he was deigning to come and spend time with us lowbies! I even joined his guild (The Sythegore Arm) for a while...it was my first guild. God bless you Axethrower, wherever you are.

My first character back in 2004 was an Alliance one, so what follows all happened during my early days as a Human.

The first time I ran Deadmines is definitely one of my fondest memories. I was really into it and remember being willing to spend as long as was needed to go through it. It felt so epic and challenging. I didn't care about drops, I didn't care about my spec, I was just having a really good time.

I always loved questing in those low level zones...Durotar, The Barrens. They were the first place I started learning how the play the game, and the place where I had the most fun. Does anyone know, where is Mankrik's wife?

My first memory of WoW was in TBC (I know, I'm a latecomer!). I remember thinking how graceful and fluid the Draenei were, especially in comparison to the human female characters...although I admit that the thing that actually convinced me to start playing was the fact that I could have a pony. :3

If you want my fondest memory, it's a recent one: When faction changes came in, I was finally able to play with a very old and very close friend of mine. We were finally able to form a guild together, and to make plans together for the guild to slowly grow.

There was a stealthed 60 rogue on the Zep between Org and UC ganking lowbies. I jumped on with my 60 priest, MCed him, then jumped him off over fatigue water. It was likely the most amused I've ever been in-game.

Beyond that, I used to run instances as a shaman with another shaman, warrior, and mage back when the level cap was 60. We'd go into 5-mans and see if we could 4-man them with that party. I think our favorite kill to this day was the one of Lord Alexei Barov. It took a few attempts, but we had the patience and the desire to figure out a strat for taking him down.

What was my earliest memory of WoW? Horrid server wide loot-lag on launch day, and then our server of choice being down for 4 days. :P

I saw my friend playing a few times back in vanilla, but at the time nothing really stuck out as anything huge to me. I'd have to say the oldest memory that really impacted me was watching my girlfriend run through the forests of Dun Morogh, killing wolves on her gnome warrior (this was before I started playing) and just thinking how big the world must be...and not fully grasping the actual size or scale. I then had the opportunity to make a character on her brothers account, and I was hooked.

I would have to say my fondest memory was the first time I stepped into Molten Core. I had somehow been roped into an officer position of a guild and was tasked with helping lead the raid. I learned more about WoW that night than I had in the year I had been playing prior. There is nothing else in the game quite like the adrenaline rush you get when you are able to down a difficult boss for the first time.

One of the best memories I ever had back in the days of Classic WoW was earning ranks in the PvP ranking system. I have to admit it had its flaws, but it was very fun to actually work your way through the ranks. It's one of the few aspects of WoW I can think of where you actually have to work hard and maintain such effort to hold onto something--in this case, your rank. When the PvP ranking system was removed, I was saddened. I must admit I'm hoping some altered version gets added back into the game.

My earliest memory of WoW comes from the tail end of open beta. I was level 18, in Auberdine, and wanted to go exploring. I wandered south into Ashenvale and around up into Felwood. There I learned the limits of rogue stealth and became an expert in corpse running. I was hoping to find a path that led back to Darkshore from the north, and was corpse hopping through Timbermaw Hold when the servers went down and the beta ended.

Nothing compares to when I fought my first "boss". While wandering around searching for boars to kill, I came across a fellow troll, laying under a tree. After clicking on him, to discover what was the matter, I found out that my comrade-in-arms had almost been slain by a horrendous beast! With rage in my heart I climbed up the side of a crag, and at the pinnacle of the world, where sky and earth meet, thunder roared and the earth shook as I did battle with the horrendous Sarkoth. For hours, we two champions gave and received dire wounds. Sarkoth's dire strength was so terrible, I was forced to imbue my weapon with the strength of the earth, even lightning called forth from my hands did nothing against his mighty exoskeleton! I was even forced to heal myself, or I knew that I would end up like my comrade far below, laying pitifully under the tree. But finally, after hours of combat, I descended from the clouds like a victorious angel with Sarkoth's Mangled Claw in my hands. Victory was mine.

Comments

Comment by Leduan

on 2009-09-22T12:04:04-05:00

Bravo friends on lasting this long.

I remember back in 2006 when my Hunter was killing boars back in Durotar and didn't know anything about that time i went all the way to the Barrens searching for a city to buy new gear and weapons with my 1 silver & 45 copper.

Comment by Sick

on 2009-09-22T12:05:10-05:00

3 Undead Rogues.Gurubashi Arena.'nuff said.

Comment by ArgentSun

on 2009-09-22T12:07:14-05:00

Queggy's made me chuckle :) And here I thought I was being melodramatic in life...

And no, you are not getting anything from me :P I really don't have a lot of memories...

Comment by Delix

on 2009-09-22T12:10:51-05:00

When I first joined WoW, I was a simple paladin, in awe of every level 50+ character with gear ranging from blue to epic. I tried my hand at leveling, but quickly became side tracked and just enjoyed cruising around Stormwind, checking out all the armor that other people had equipped. At one point I got myself into a twink guild for WSG. I had such a blast with them, killing horde, coordinating caps and just screwing around.

Fast forward a few years, I hate PvP, but PvE has become a huge part of my game. I love dungeons, lore, epic lewt and killing one more raid boss. I do miss the old Vanilla WoW days, but going back wouldn't be the same, and I wouldn't be as good as I am now. Cataclysm will really bring out those memories as every place I have visited will be drastically changed. But at least now I can say to newbies "Back in my day, we had to run for 20 minutes just in order to turn one quest in! And we enjoyed it!"

Comment by ZachUSAman

on 2009-09-22T12:15:13-05:00

i remember leveling, and thinking you needed to hit attack every time you wanted to attack. I also remember hogger, the 150crit... holy crap! i remember going to school the next day in awe, thinking of how i would need like maybe 5 people, a few hunters with their pets, a healer and a tank.

Comment by wycorp

on 2009-09-22T12:22:36-05:00

I think its the first time I got into a group with people I didnt know. I was in Redridge and only had the group quests left to complete and found 3 other people that were in the same boat and one had a friend that was going to come help. The friend was probably only like level 35 or something but I remember thinking how crazy powerful they were and how I was going to have to come back there when I got level 35 to exact vengeance...

I added 2 of the group to my friends list and played with them on and off over time. I think I even ran SM Library with them too...

Just kinds of sums up WoW for me: finding cool people and have something to work toward.

Comment by deathpwner

on 2009-09-22T12:24:06-05:00

My fondest memory of wow was when I first started to get into the game, I was playing and a friend's level 60 tauren druid in the middle of classic, well i was running around durotar switching forms and having a good time, well I seen that one of my forms were greyed out, t'was my aquadic form. So i went hunting for some water to swim in. and I found that water at The Great Sea, then I found my "M" key. and I seen that whole new place I havent been before "Eastern Kingdoms". So i went for a swim, till the fatigue started to kick in. Then I was a poor little druid, thinking I killed my friends druid forever, Dam I wish I knew about spirit rez's back then. hehe, Well thats my oldest memory in wow.

Comment by Leduan

on 2009-09-22T12:25:37-05:00

This is for my friend who couldn't comment:

"I got my Mage to level 11 by melee dps only."

Nuff said...

Comment by Queggy

on 2009-09-22T12:27:38-05:00

Queggy's made me chuckle :) And here I thought I was being melodramatic in life...

And no, you are not getting anything from me :P I really don't have a lot of memories...

Malgayne had to shorten it, the full version was much longer. :|

Comment by Coaldog

on 2009-09-22T12:33:25-05:00

This is for my friend who couldn't comment:

"I got my Mage to level 11 by melee dps only."

Nuff said...

Hehe, I used to do that with my first druid. I didn't like the animation of Wrath so I just clubbed enemies until I got bear form.

Comment by axxionhunt

on 2009-09-22T12:38:02-05:00

First memories of party group, guesting together and also memories from my guild. I was level 5 priest leveling in Elwyn Forest. I got invited to pretty big guild 400 online members at any time. I was so impresses how friendly and helpful peapole are here. In life it takes time to get a friend, you may not like how he acts, speaks ect. Here peapole invites you to quest together you speak a bit... and after 20 mins you already put them in your friends list. I had such a wonderful feeling of community.

Comment by xerozBR

on 2009-09-22T12:39:25-05:00

My WoW memory was with my Night-Elf Rogue, where I feel that the world is very beautiful. I did not rush to level him. I take my time to level while enjoying the sceneries and learning how to play. And the most place I like was Arathi-Highland. Because there were so much ganking on my server. And that was when I started to PvP in Arathi-Basin. The experience was awesome with the ranking system was still exist.

Before I even hit level 20. I thought rogues uses mana for their skills. And I was planning to get items with +mana. So I could spam backstab constantly. =P

Comment by xaratherus

on 2009-09-22T12:40:03-05:00

I was a latecomer also - I didn't start playing regularly until Burning Crusade came out (my prior forays into Azeroth didn't last due to personal reasons).

However, I would say the moment I remember best was defeating Curator for the first time.

My roommate, who had played since vanilla beta, had long since been 70, and was in a raiding guild who went into Karazhan week after week. They raided overnight, and many were the times that I woke up to stumble into the bathroom to hear, "Gallery rules will be strictly enforced." It started to drive me a little crazy, to the point that I asked her to start using headphones when they were in that fight.

After several months I was finally 70, and we started raiding Kara with our own guild - and the first time that we dropped that droning metal punk, I was so happy to shut him up.

Comment by BeerOnTheMonkey

on 2009-09-22T12:41:43-05:00

The first day I logged into WoW (somewhere around mid Classic) I was lucky enough to run into another lowbie in Deathknell who happened to be an alt. So this person helped me out a lot with some of the nuances of the game I might have missed, even gave me twenty gold! I was in awe that someone could have so much gold that twenty didn't matter, considering I had about seventy-five silver to my name.

My fondest memory would have to be exacting my revenge upon that bastard Son of Arugal. Many levels of hunting, all the while in fear of the monster, who seems to show up out of nowhere. After a time, I returned to Silverpine, a little older and a little wiser, and took down the beast. It felt good.

Comment by Richochet

on 2009-09-22T12:43:56-05:00

My earliest Wow memory is from leveling my 1st toon back at the end of vanilla days,1st toon was a Warrior, I'm like L20 or something, running my first pug thru deadmines. As some pugs are wont to do, the group fell apart before we could finish and my toon was left for dead at the gangplank on VC's ship.(Silly noob that I was, I had somehow lost my hearthstone)

I was under the impression that you actually had to find your corpse in order to rez it, and figured I would have to run out of the instance to get my Warrior back to the outside world.

I left the corpse in there for like a week, figuring I'd never get out of there on foot.

I still dont remember how I got him out...just remember how bummed I was, thought he'd be stuck in there forever !seems soooooo stupid now.

Comment by NeoBlackheart

on 2009-09-22T12:48:34-05:00

First memory was 2 months before BC came out I got the game and started playing my hunter. I got him to 35 when bc hit. Yeah I had no idea how a good build was so It was something along the lines of 10 in each tree in stuff that looked like it would help. I had 1 blue just one a random BOE sword. I was the #$%^ back then. Then BC hit I made a pally and started playing him then wrath hit and I started my DK then cat hit and I started playing my worgen druid... wait scratch that last part. I am still working on that.

Comment by mikunt212

on 2009-09-22T12:49:56-05:00

My earliest memory? I was one of the select few that got into open beta, back when Undead on the Horde could speak Common, Orcish, and Guttermouth :)

But, my fondest memories, were (after waiting 45 minutes in queue on Illidan) before TBC playing with my best friend Bldngskull, Corbeavus, Iakio, and Delcor

Comment by Cantras

on 2009-09-22T13:08:46-05:00

I rolled on my boyfriend's account when he moved in with me for a little bit between apartments (old lease ran up two weeks before the new one started). I got to about level 9 or so, and said, well, I'm going to need my own account. I remember making a bank-alt type character just for Cantras 1.0 to mail her stuff to before I deleted her to make Cantras 2.0 on my new account, because the six slot bag and piddling amount of silver I'd accrued by then was such a big deal to me.

Comment by nerkel

on 2009-09-22T13:11:07-05:00

I remember one of my earliest memories.

My first character was a dwarf hunter I made during the middle of TBC. I melee'd with my pet. My first pet was a boar I tamed near Kharanos, his name was Mr. Pig. I then got a white polar bear, which I then ditched for a wolf in Elwynn, which I then ditched for a vulture in Westfall I got him to lv 16.

Those days were amazing. Everything was new to me. I went skinning and I sold all my leathers so I could buy bags (Mind you, I was npcing them, did not know what the Auction house was.) I went into Warsong Gulch and ate a warriors face. I deserted shortly after that.

Comment by Aizhia

on 2009-09-22T13:18:47-05:00

Way back in 2005, I was a Dwarf Priest in my 20s questing in Wetlands. I met an American couple (I play in Europe) and quested with them a while and they invited me to join their guild. They'd played the US Beta and knew how the game worked (I just knew how to play it). They taught me about mana conservation and agro management and it was then that I realised that this game had depth. It was more than just a game in a beautiful and compelling world.

Roll forward 30 or so levels and I was idleing in Ironforge when I got a whisper "Wanna go to Molten Core?" One of the very few guilds to even be in MC was short a Dwarf Priest for Magmadar (back then, only Horde stance danced) and I was first on their random whisper list. I was overawed by MC. That first trash pull was the most epic thing I'd ever seen. Lucifron passed without incident but for Maggy, I had a job to do. My heart was pounding but all I was doing was throwing the occasional heal and casting Fear Ward after every Panic. Maggy went down first time and I was elated. Everyone was congratulating me and whispering me.

Maggy is still my favourite boss just because of the memories he evokes.